


Excerpt - The Celebrity Crush Plot

by biscuit_knees



Category: Barry (TV 2018), Bill Hader - Fandom
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25149985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuit_knees/pseuds/biscuit_knees
Summary: Elle is a writer and gets the chance of a lifetime to work on the show Barry. There's just one major problem, she has a secret crush on her boss. Excerpt from a longer story
Relationships: Bill Hader/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 20





	Excerpt - The Celebrity Crush Plot

**Author's Note:**

> Before we get started. This is the middle of a story but I wanted to get some feedback and gauge interest before posting the whole thing. Original female character is Elle, she's a writer on the show Barry and this takes place during the writing of Season 2. The reader is aware of Elle's massive crush on Bill, but no one else knows. Enjoy!

Shouting and laughter carried down the hallway to the writer’s room. Elle balanced her coffee, notebook, and laptop in her arms as she shoved open the door. Looking around the room, the only open seat was next to Bill. _Dammit_ she thought. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the seat. Smiling up at her, he nodded, “All yours.” 

“No, Amy, that is weird, that’s a weird crush,” said Duffy. The room erupted into the laughter again.

Elle placed her stuff carefully on the table and took a seat. “What are yall talking about?”

Alec rolled his eyes, “Celebrity crushes, like who are our celebrity crushes…” Alec often looked like he was dealing with a high school classroom. He slouched into the seat and buried himself in his laptop, ignoring the cacophony going on around him.

“Nope. Unsubscribe.” Elle took a giant gulp of coffee, pulling her pen out of her messy bun. This is not a conversation in which she wanted to take part. 

“Oh come on Elle, we’re all sharing. Who is yours?” pleaded Amy.

“Yeah, Amy just said hers is Seth Rogen.” Duffy said stifling laughter. 

“Ew.. yeah that’s weird Amy.” Elle took another big gulp of coffee. 

Amy grimaced, “Now you have to share.”

“No,” Elle looked over at Bill, “Did you say yours?” She figured she could get out of it if Bill wasn’t revealing his. 

“Phoebe Cates.” Bill shut his laptop and turned towards her. “Forever and always, Phoebe Cates in Gremlins.”

Elle nodded slowly, and looked around the room. There was no way she could lie about this because she’s a terrible liar. She wasn’t getting out of this and she was **terrified**.

Bill turned his chair towards her, “Its okay Elle, we won’t judge you,” he said teasingly. “What’s said in the writer’s room, stays in the writer’s room. Besides if you don’t say it, we’ll just try and guess.”

Folding her arms across her chest, “Fine, guess, because I’m not telling.” There was a slim chance they would guess right? But surely no one would actually say it even if they did figure it out, **her crush was in the room**.

“Okay so its going to be someone that one of us knows because why else be so hush about it,” said Emily.

“Who did everyone else say?” asked Elle.

They each went around the room sharing their celebrity crushes, some were from when they were younger, but Amy and Emily both said people Bill knew. “By the way Emily, I’m telling Seth Meyers about your crush on him,” said Bill.

“Stays in the room Hader!” Emily said, slapping her palm on the table.

Everyone started studying Elle closely and rethinking everything they knew about her… taking everything into consideration. Guesses started flying into the air, Chris Hemsworth (bangable but not her crush), Brad Pitt, Donald Glover, etc. But then they started getting closer. Elle’s stomach cramped in anxiety.

“Okay I’m guessing a former SNL cast member, most likely someone that Bill worked with?” asked Duffy, “Why else would she not want to share?”

Elle gave him a brief nod, maybe they were going to guess. _Fuck_. What was she going to do? Her palms started sweating.

“Andy?” guessed Bill, Elle shook her head.

“Sudeikis?” guessed Amy.

“No, yall I really don’t want to say.” said Elle opening up her laptop so she could hide.

“Wait, is it Seth Meyers?” said Emily.

“No.” said Elle firmly.

They went through a pretty extensive list, Forte, Fred, someone even said Lorne.

“No, no, no…” she kept answering.

“God, who is it?” said Bill. He started tapping his pen on his stack of notes, and going through the list of people in his head. Elle looked at him and then back to her laptop.

“Oh…” said Amy, who then made eye contact with Emily. Elle’s eyes grew wide with fear and she mouthed “ _Don’t_ ” at her.

“Ohhh no.” said Emily, mouthing silently to Elle, “I’m so sorry.”

Duffy saw the exchange between the two of them, “Oh… shit.” The room went absolutely silent.

Bill looked around the room. “Am I missing something?” Bill and Elle locked eyes. Realization was dawning on Bill’s face. Elle looked back at her laptop and slumped deeper down in the chair.

Alec, looking up from his laptop, finally started to realize what was happening and tried to turn the conversation around. “Come on let’s get to work…”

“The only person we haven’t said is…”, said Bill slowly, his face beginning to flush, “ **Me**?”

Elle buried her face, quietly slinging together expletives into her hands. She quickly got up to leave the room, “I forgot something in my office.” Her face was beet red and she could feel hot tears brimming behind her eyelids. She couldn’t face him, she couldn’t face anyone. She quickly ran out of the room slamming the door shut behind her.

The whole table was aghast.

“Bill, you should go talk to her,” said Alec. The rest of the table nodded.

Bill bolted out the door, running down the hall. She slammed the door to her office before he could get to it. He tried to open the door but she had locked it, “Come on Elle, open up.” 

“Go away.” she shouted. She was sitting in her chair behind the desk, burying her face in her knees.

“Please? Open the door.” 

“No.” she said quietly through her sobs.

She heard the soft thud of his forehead laying against the door. His voice was quiet and pleading, “Please, just let me talk to you.”

Her heart sank. She slowly got up from her chair, walked over and opened the door. He stood there, hands braced on the doorway, head bowed. 

“Can I come in?” he said softly.

She nodded and sat back down in the chair. A hard lump moved into her throat as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her hands moved to her face to cover it. She felt like such a mess for letting this happen and even more of a mess because of how she had just reacted.

Bill kneeled in front of her on the floor and gently pulled her hands from her face, holding them gently in his, “Hey, talk to me.” 

She stared down at their hands for a long time, trying to calm herself, taking deep ragged breaths. A million thoughts raced through her head. _Yes_ , she was embarrassed that her secret that she had locked up so tight within herself was out in the open. _Yes_ , she was absolutely humiliated that the one person who should have never found out about how she felt, finally knew. Mostly she was scared of getting fired, but also scared of losing everything she had with Bill. 

“Am I going to lose my job?” she blurted out before she started sobbing again.

“What?”

“Isn’t this like…” she sipped air in before continuing, “sexual harassment or something?”

Bill smiled and started quietly chuckling, “Elle, I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Don’t laugh at me Bill!” She pleaded. She thought about how much she loved this job. This show and these people meant so much to her, which is why she kept this giant secret.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but you’re being really adorable right now… and that might be sexual harassment.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

_Dammit_ , she was not supposed to be laughing or finding him charming right now. But a tiny smile crossed her face as she met his gaze. Tears started to form in her eyes again. “I’m so sorry.”

Bill looked nervous, “Is it okay if I give you a hug? I think you could really use one right now...”

The lump in her throat grew hard and tears spilled out as she nodded her head. Bill pulled her close to him, one hand carefully cradling the back of her head, the other pulling her tight to him. 

“You aren’t going to lose your job. I’ll talk everything out with Alec, that’ll be okay.” Bill said. She buried her face into his neck her tears soaking through his t-shirt. He kept reassuring her quietly that everything would be okay.

Elle finally gained composure and calmed down but something felt different now. She pulled back from their embrace. Her and Bill had been close, but this felt new to her. She found herself fighting every urge in her to not look into his eyes and down at his lips. She shut her eyes tight to push the thoughts out of her mind and grabbed a tissue to blow her nose.

Bill’s cheeks were flushed. “Take the rest of the day off, okay?” he said. “And we can just talk about this later.” He stood up in front of her.

She nodded and looked up at him. Things between them had changed, and Elle needed some time to figure out how she felt. Yes, she had a crush on Bill Hader, comedian, director, Emmy-winning actor, _Bill-mother-fucking-Hader_. But as she spent time with him and got to know him, that crush had started to change. She didn’t know what to do or how to act around him right now. She just needed space… She swallowed, “Bill, thank you for checking on me--”

“Are you going to be okay?” Bill interrupted.

Elle nodded, “Yeah, but I think…”, the words struggled out of her mouth, “I think I kind of just need some space from... _us_.”

The word _us_ hung between them. This acknowledgement of emotions and tension that had grown between them for months now finally spoken into existence. 

That _us_ brought their daily walks for coffee and evening text messages into context. She would be lying to herself if she hadn’t noticed how he always sought her out, saving her seats next to him, him plopping down in her office to talk on Monday mornings and his dumb excuses for being around her. A part of her wondered, did he want her to admit that she had a crush on him?

Bill looked down at his feet and put his hands in his front jean pockets. “Okay, yeah. That’s fine.”

“Just until Friday, when we have our meeting to go over the script for episode 5. Does that work?” she said, unable to look at him. 

Bill nodded, “That works, why don’t I go grab your stuff and bring it in to you?”

“Thanks, yeah I don’t know if I can face them today.” She said wiping the smeared mascara off of her cheeks.

Bill walked back down the hallway. There was quiet quick talking behind the door of the writer’s room that quickly stopped as he opened the door. Picking up her stuff, “Elle’s going to head home for the rest of the day… I’ll be right back.”

He quickly left the room, walking back down to her office. She had already started gathering up her stuff. “Thanks Bill”, she said when he returned.

They stood there together in silence before Bill stepped back out into the hallway. He crossed his arms and looked down at the ground at his feet, “Let me know if you need anything okay?”

She nodded, “I’m going to try not to though… you know, reach out to you for a few days. Like still any normal work-related communication, but like--”

He looked up at her, “I understand… keepin’ it _profesh_.” As soon as it came out of his mouth, he winced at sounding like an old man.

Elle smiled, “Yeah… _profesh_.” She made her way out into the hallway, “I’ll see you later.”

Bill nodded and gave her a thumbs up, “Sounds good, see ya.”

=========

He watched Elle walk down the hallway before he turned on his heels and made his way back into the writer’s room.

It was silent as he sat down.

Alec spoke up first, “So where were we…”

Bill opened his laptop and let the sound of their voices grow fuzzy. He squinted his eyes and furrowed his brow before slamming his laptop shut. “Can we skip this today? Like reschedule or something…”

“Sure,” said Alec, “Let’s reschedule for next week.”

Bill quickly got up, heading into his office, dismissing everyone in the room. They all exchanged silent glances and gathered up their things.

Bill sat behind his desk and put his head in his hands. On Alec’s way back to his office, he stood in Bill’s doorway and knocked. “Hey buddy”

Bill looked up, “Hey, come on in.”

Alec was stoic and emotionless, in his typical way. “Everything okay?”

Bill let out a long sigh, “We’re not going to fire her right?”

“Do you want to fire her?” Alec said quickly.

Bill straightened up, “Fuck no.”

“Then no, we aren’t going to fire her. Are you okay man?” Alec asked again.

“Yeah, yes… yeah, I’m okay.” Bill pursed his lips together.

Alec reached behind him and closed the door. Bill raised his eyebrows.

“Listen, I’m just going to say this so you know you have… _options_.” Alec was choosing his words very carefully. “If something did happen or more specifically you wanted _something_ to happen… we could figure it out.” Alex paused, “Its paperwork but… we could figure it out.”

Bill sighed. “Thanks buddy...” Alec stood up to leave but Bill stopped him, “Should I?” he said quietly.

Alec opened up the door to walk out, “I bet money on it.”

====

Elle threw her phone in her purse, determined not to look at the text messages buzzing through from the other writers. She was going to drive home, wash her face, pour a glass of wine at 11:00 am on a Tuesday, and sulk, then look at her phone.

She needed space from the reality that just happened. Her emotions felt messy, like thick sticky sludge. She got home and dropped her bag at the front door, shedding the weight of this day. She went into the bathroom and gave herself a hard look in the mirror. Her puffy red eyes looked tired and deep creases formed between her eyebrows. She splashed cold water on her face, walked to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine, and collapsed on the couch. Her instincts were to turn on an episode of Forensic Files but she stopped. This reminded her of Bill and she needed space from him. She quickly changed it to Naked and Afraid. This would definitely get her mind off of the fact that she just admitted to her boss that she had a crush on him.

Even the word _crush_ felt gross to her… but no. She wasn’t going to start working out how she felt just yet, she was going to zone out in front of the TV.

Half a season and half a bottle of wine later, Elle was a little tipsy. She walked over to the door and grabbed her phone out of her purse. “So many texts messages” she said outloud.

“Lizzy from Planned Parenthood here! We’re protesting the legislatures’...”

“50% off Frames at JoAnn’s!!! Click here for coupon”

“Emily and Amy - 21 messages”

Alec Berg: “Bill said you were worried about getting fired. You’re fine. Get some rest. See you tomorrow.”

She dismissed the messages from Planned Parenthood and Joanns, gave a thumbs up reaction to Alec and let out a sigh of relief, and then clicked on the conversation from Emily and Amy.

She had received half a dozen messages of apologies while she was still at the office. The rest were asking if she was okay, or needed anything, and could they buy her drinks this week. 

****

Elle: I’m okay. Thanks for asking. It’s okay. And of course, I’ll always take free drinks. How’s the room?”

Emily: Hader cancelled it.

Elle gave a !! reaction.

Elle: Fuck, that sucks, what happened?

Amy: Came back in, sat down, asked to reschedule it for next week. Then him and Alec went in his office and shut the door.

Emily: Did something happen?

Elle paused for a while before answering.

Elle: Nope, just talked. Listen, I need to get my mind off this situation for a bit before I can come back to the office tomorrow. So… I’m out.

Emily reacted with a thumbs up.

Amy reacted with a thumbs up.

Amy: Feel better lady.

*****

Elle tossed her phone onto the other side of the couch before hugging her knees into her chest. She needed to be able to compartmentalize her feelings. But right now, she was going to finish the rest of this bottle of wine, order pizza, and cry herself to sleep.

=================

It was 11:00 pm and Bill had spent the last 30 minutes trying to read his book. He would start reading, then pick up his phone, go to text Elle, remember she asked him not to talk to her, slam his phone down on the bed, pick up his book and try to get back into the story. He felt like he had spent most of the night pissed off and agitated because he couldn’t talk to her. 

Meanwhile, Elle was sobering herself up before bed. She was looking through reddit at funny cat gifs and one made her snort with laughter. Her brain still fuzzy from the wine, she copied the gif and went to paste it into a message to Bill and then stopped. _She shouldn’t be doing this…_

He picked up his phone again, clicked on her name in his messages. Those three dots meaning someone on the other end was typing something popped up… Bill sat up in his bed and started to type, “I miss us...” but waited to hit send watching those dots.

She had the gif in the message when she saw those three dots blinking. He was typing something to her. She abruptly sat up in bed quickly deleted the gif from the message but kept staring at the screen.

The dots disappeared from his screen. He closed his eyes tight and deleted the message. He got out of bed and put his phone on his dresser and plugged it in to charge. He looked up at himself in the mirror, “Stop it. Stop obsessing over this,” he said to himself. He walked back across the room, turned out his light, and crawled into bed.

The dots disappeared off of her screen. She exhaled, rolling over to place her phone on her nightstand and sunk into bed for a restless night of sleep.

Wednesday morning, Elle shut herself in her office to find a source for 1940s period costumes and put together a draft timeline of the shooting schedule for Episode One. Once this was completed, she was going to dive into notes for Bill’s solo episode. Was she purposefully avoiding facing everyone? Yes, but she _was_ getting a lot of shit done.

She had heard Bill walk up and down the hallway several times this morning, most likely doing his usual pacing around while he thought. She heard footsteps and a knock at her door, “Hey its Emily.”

“Come in”

Emily quickly walked in and shut the door behind her. “He’s being extra pace-y today.”

Elle laughed, “I can tell, even with my door shut.”

“How are you? You look…”

“Hungover? I’m hungover, but functioning.” Elle leaned back in her chair.

“What are you working on today?” Emily asked, clutching her cup of tea.

Elle opened up the document Bill had sent her on Monday, “I just finished scheduling for the first episode and now Bill wants my notes on his ‘episode’ that he wrote. Have you read it yet?”

Emily shook her head. “He never sent it to me, I don’t think anyone has seen it besides Alec.”

“Oh, maybe he just sent it to me.” Elle could feel her face begun to flush

“It's because he likes you...”, Emily teased

“Shut up Emily.”

“I’m serious… I think the only two people who don’t realize it, are the both of you.” Emily said standing up.

“Emily, I just… I can’t think about that right now okay. Besides, I’m pretty sure I fucked everything up yesterday.”

She frowned at Elle, “I think that’s bullshit. Besides, we all made bets on when he’d ask you out… I said two weeks but I think Alec gave it one.”

Elle’s eyes grew wide, “GET OUT, get out now.”

Emily walked out of her office laughing and left the door propped open. 

Elle was even more embarrassed and just needed to get out of her office and walk off some steam. She stepped out the door and was almost run over by Bill. 

She gave him a brief hi and walked off before he could talk to her more. It was only Wednesday, how was she going to make it to Friday like this? She spent the rest of the week hiding out in her office, sending dry life-less emails, and avoiding Bill as much as she could.

Before she knew it, it was Friday morning. She had cancelled on drinks with everyone after what Emily told her. Besides, she ended up staying late on Thursday reading through the story for Bill’s episode. It was amazing, but needed some clarity. She got in at 8 that morning to go over her notes and to prepare for seeing him at 10 am. She had left her door open, hoping he might stop in but he just walked right by her door.

At 9:45, she got an email from Bill, 

*****

Subject: Running behind

L,

Need to run a quick errand, may be few minutes late. I’ll meet you in my office, door should be open.

Bill

About three minutes until ten, she gathered up her stuff and headed into his office. She set herself up on the couch that faced his desk. She shot him a text: 

*****

Elle: Waiting in your office, decided to reorganize EVERYTHING. Take your time. 

Bill reacted with Ha!

*****

It was just a few minutes later when he showed up with two cups of coffee in his hand. Elle smiled up at him. “Hi.”

Bill handed her a cup, “Hi. Caramel latte with whip cream, you’re Friday treat?”

“That’s right… Thank you.”

Bill sat down next to her, “Let’s get right into this, I’ve got to leave for a lunch meeting at 11:30. What time are you leaving today? Asking to ask, not as your boss…”

Elle laughed, “I was going to head out around 4:00.”

“Okay, I’ll stop by before you head out.”

Elle grabbed her notes, “Bill,” he looked over at her hopefully, “This is amazing.”

Bill smiled so wide and looked down at his lap, “Thanks, now tell me what’s wrong.”

Elle jumped right in with the few questions and recommendations that she had, especially the note about what if Fuches superglued his hands to the steering wheel. They both started laughing together and things felt back to normal.

As they started wrapping up, that awkwardness started to creep between them again. Elle gathered her things and stood up to go back to her office, “All right Bill, I will see you before I leave for the day right?”

“Yeah…” Bill looked down at the ground, he felt embarrassed by what he was about to say. “Can I say something and it not sound weird or creepy?”

Elle scrunched her face up at him, “I guess weirdo…”

Bill laughed, “Just wanted to say… I missed _us_.” His eyes met hers. He looked so genuine and earnest.

This took Elle completely by surprise but it didn’t make her nervous, sad, or embarrassed. “Me too.” She said before she walked back down the hall to her office, grinning from ear to ear.

=======

Elle looked at her watch, it was 3:30 and Bill hadn’t stopped by yet. She had left her door open for the rest of the day after their meeting. The offices were quiet with people wrapping things up or heading out early. 

Alec knocked on her door frame to say hello. Elle looked up, “Hey!”

“Great notes on episode five by the way. The superglue thing is genius.” he said.

“Oh thanks! Yeah, it just didn’t make sense why he wouldn’t just pull her off or something… Oh I also had another idea but Bill won’t like it…”

Alec leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms across his chest, “Hit me with it.”

“So you know how Barry is wearing a ski mask during the fight scene, but he’s getting the shit kicked out of him right?” Alec nodded and Elle continued, “What if for the rest of the episode, Barry’s face is covered in blood, but like just a dark red goatee that goes from under his nose all the way down his neck to the top of his shirt?”

Alec looked up in thought and grinned, “Yeah, Bill’s going to hate it for himself, but for the show… its hilarious.”

“Okay so when I pitch it to him, you’ll have my back on it.”

“Definitely.” Alec nodded, “And he’ll listen to me.”

“Exactly…”

Alec shifted his weight, “Umm… got any big plans this weekend?” 

Elle’s eyes narrowed, “No… why do you ask?” 

“Oh no reason… oh look, there’s Bill.. gotta run! See ya later!” Alec quickly took off.

Alec was being sneaky and she knew exactly why he had stopped by. She heard him and Bill talk briefly outside her door before Bill came in. 

“Hi”, Bill slinked into her office and sat down in the chair across from her.

“What’s up?” Elle looked at him suspiciously. He looked tense and nervous, which was making her feel tense and nervous.

“Well-- um--” Bill was stumbling over his words.

“Are you okay?”, Elle asked.

Bill took a deep breath in and looked up at her, “You got any plans for tonight?”

Elle’s breath caught in her chest and she swore her heart was about to fall out of her butt. “I was just going to make myself dinner… why?”

Bill took another deep breath, “I wanted to talk to you about what happened, earlier this week and I thought we could talk over dinner tonight?” Bill paused, “So… do you want to grab dinner with me tonight?”

Yes, her heart was definitely about to fall out of her butt. Her stomach filled with butterflies and she was stunned silent before she realized she should breathe _and_ answer his question.

“Uhh… Sure. What time?”

Bill’s chest visibly relaxed, “6:00 work, we can go get Mexican?”

Elle was shocked, but like maybe this was just a friend thing… yeah, _friend-thing_ she told herself but didn’t believe it at all.

“Yeah, sounds great, I love Mexican.” What was she saying? Words were just falling out of her mouth clumsily.

Bill smiled and stood up. “Cool, I’ll pick you up from your house at 6:00?”

Inside her brain Elle was just screaming _what the fuck is happening, is this real life?_ “Perfect, so I’m going to leave like… right now.”

Bill started walking out the door. “Oh yeah of course…” he paused and turned around, “Just to be clear, this is a **date** …”

Elle had started to grab her things, when he said this her notebook fell out of her hands and onto her desk. She looked up at him, “Yes. Got it.”

Bill laughed, “Okay, see you in a bit.”


End file.
